Windows Vista partition won't format

icedbullet · 31 Jan 2010 at 19:17

I recently installed windows 7 pro x64 and now I need to format the partition that I had windows vista ultimate x64 installed on.

My disk setup is as follows.

Samsung F1: 250GB Win Vista partition, 750GB storage partition
Samsung F3: 500GB Win 7 Partition, 500GB storage partition
Seagate Barracuda: 500GB Storage

Vista was installed first, then I downloaded Windows 7 from the Digital River student offer site. That put the windows 7 install files onto vista, from which I then installed Windows 7 onto the F3 drive. When I turn on my pc I am always greeted by Vista Boot manager. I got rid of that using msconfig and disabling the boot. However instead of the windows 7 animation I still get the vista bar (not much of an issue but I thought it may be of some importance to the problem)

When I'm in windows 7 and I got to format the disk, it shows the error message saying "windows was unable to complete the format". Can anyone tell me how I can uninstall vista so that I can reclaim the drive space it is taking up?

Scythe · 31 Jan 2010 at 19:23

Give the gparted live cd a try.

Delete the problematic partition using gparted, its pretty simple then give the windows disc a go again to create a fresh partition in its place.

rpstewart · 31 Jan 2010 at 19:35

Are you sure the system isn't booting off the F1, just because Win 7 is installed on the F3 it doesn't mean that's where it's booting from. Windows won't commit suicide by allowing you to format the partition it's booting from.

icedbullet · 31 Jan 2010 at 19:40

I think it may be booting from the F1. When the F1 was unplugged once I was unable to boot into any version of windows. Is there anyway to make windows 7 boot first? do i have to alter my hdd boot setting in bios to make it boot from the f3 first?

rpstewart · 31 Jan 2010 at 19:49

You'll need to change the boot order in the BIOS but first you need to get the boot files onto the F3.

First disconnect all the HDDs other than the F3 then boot from the Win 7 DVD and go into the recovery options. Then run a startup repair, that should install the boot files onto the F3.

icedbullet · 31 Jan 2010 at 19:54

Yeah that makes sense. The win 7 I'm using was a digital download so I don't have the cd, it ran off vista and installed windows 7. Any idea how I can make a cd from a digital river download?

Running a starup repair won't affect any of my programs or data stored on the f3 will it?

UPDATE: I found this link to a direct download of my version of windows 7 (has the same RTM code and everything.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/11/10/windows-7-iso-x86-and-x64-official-direct-download-links-ultimate-professional-and-home-premium/

If I make the iso from this and put it onto disc will this work?

icedbullet · 31 Jan 2010 at 21:55

UPDATE: I did as you suggested rpstewart. I made the windows 7 disc from the website i posted above. The system would not boot from the cd easily and the one time it did boot from the cd I ran the recovery to no avail.

UPDATE: I created a system repair disc from my windows 7 installation. I could see the boot files needed in the discs contents. So I booted from the disc (with all hdd's except the F3 disconnected) and all it repaired was some partition on my F3 disk. Took like 1 second to do that. When it said select OS to repair there were no options for windows 7 the menu was just blank, it didnt seem to pick up the windows 7 installation on the F3